Middle Eaton Canyon exploration

[dima]

Today I went down to Idlehour camp to do some bushwhacking and to see what remains of the old cabins the USGS quads say used to be there. I rode up to Henninger Flats from Altadena. Went into the visitor center building for the first time, which is awesome, it turns out. Whoever runs that place actually put in some effort into the exhibits.

The Idlehour trail down to the camp is clear, but there's a LOT of poison oak, even high up above the canyon. There's lots of greenery everywhere in fact. The creek is running well, as are the minor side streams. There're nice waterfalls:





And many of the cabins are where they're supposed to be:









The California Newts are out. Saw a bunch of them:





And ladybugs. One area had so many of them that you couldn't walk without stepping on them.





So yeah. It's really nice and verdant in the canyon right now. Poison oak everywhere and lots of some sort of stinging nettle thing, but really pleasant otherwise.

[redhead242]

Great photos! I went down there this morning as well (out and back from Eaton Saddle) and it's incredibly lush and beautiful right now. Very green, but also a lot of tall weeds with those pokey things that get stuck in socks made the trail a bit overgrown in places (I did many tick checks and didn't see any). At times I felt like I was hiking through a field of butterflies because there were so many around.

[CrazyHermit]

Wow, those are some incredible shots.
I've never seen that screened mailbox looking thing or the dome shaped structure. Is that a fireplace?
Are those upstream from the Idlehour campground? The ladybugs are unbelieveable.
That canyon is absolutely gorgeous in the winter season.

[dima]

Yep, everything is above Idlehour.